Strokes in the Bank: Natalie's Blog

Welcome to Strokes in the Bank, Natalie Mastracci's blog that will give readers a behind-the-scenes look at the Syracuse women's rowing team from the unique perspective of the Canadian Olympic silver medalist. Be sure to check back throughout the 2012-13 season for updates!

Strokes in the Bank is back! The Syracuse rowers are off to a great start in the 2013 racing season and will host their lone home regatta of the season at the James A. Ten Eyck Boathouse on Saturday, April 20, the O'Leary Cup. You can follow the Orange 24/7 on Twitter at @RowOrange and on Facebook at /SyracuseWomensRowing.

ENTRY 8 - Changing Winds
April 10, 2013

The last two weekends went pretty well... Wouldn't you agree?

Kittell Cup: Syracuse vs. Boston University
Into the Headwind:
On Sunday morning after the Kittell Cup, I went for my traditional post-race run. From the comfort of my apartment the winds hadn't seemed that bad but while exposed on the road my perspective changed. Anyone who plays an outdoor sport will know that Wind is the enemy. On shore it tricks us: "come out on the water, it won't be that bad…" Then, once you're in the middle of the lake it is that bad, and the rest of practice is spent thinking up a way to engineer a dome over Onondaga Lake. (Although we Orange know a thing or two about domes… trust me, it's not possible. I've had a lot of windy practices to think about it.)

Initially all I met with was headwind; stiff, chilled relentless gusts. This went on for HOURS (more like 40 minutes…) until, suddenly I took a step and was almost thrown forward. I had run into a neighborhood that sheltered the road from the wind. The weight was lifted off my chest and I felt like I was running lightening fast! (…and by fast I mean fast for an ex-basketball-playing rower. So coordinated… but not fast at all.) I hadn't even realized the effort I was giving to combat the wind and, now free of this burden, was happily sprinting past houses.

Eventually the neighborhood ended, taking with it, its shelter and again the wind was hurling itself at me. But this time it felt different. Although the wind was just as strong as before, I felt stronger having already been through it.

The same goes for our team…

The Kittell Cup was our sheltered neighborhood after months of winter training against a headwind. During the regatta we saw our hard winter paying off as, race after race, Syracuse crews crossed the finish line first. As well, we leave this race weekend knowing that we can win. Our training has given us the capacity to respond and execute in racing.

Now here comes the hard part; the part where we leave this exciting and light-hearted weekend behind and willingly throw ourselves back into the wind. We must train with the same urgency as if we had lost and now need to find speed before our next race.

(By the way… Thanks for the new shell, Kris! We love it!)

Orange Challenge Cup: Syracuse vs. Penn & Northeastern

Riding the Tailwind:
Rowing would be so much easier if everything would just go well all the time. I mean — we already have to go through monumentally searing pain in competition, couldn't the sport-gods make it so that everything else is good!? Have the boat always be balanced. Have everyone always able to do the same thing at the same time. Have the weather cooperate! Just have it be perfect, please.
This will never happen in rowing. As much as we wish it weren't the case, it's a statistical impossibility to have eight women moving in exactly the same way 100% of the time. In fact, I doubt that there has ever been (or will ever be) a crew that goes through their season checking off one perfect practice after another. Even while training for the Olympics my boat had both good and less-than-good days; it is the nature of the sport! Therefore our goal, as rowers, is to train ourselves so that even on a Bad Day we're still rowing well.

We're sitting in the starting gates in lane three. The stagger is against us. We're starting three seats down on Penn and a little over five seats down on Northeastern. From seven-seat I can just barely make out that there is a boat next to us in my peripheral vision. I'm sure from Holly's view, in front of me in stroke-seat, she can't see a thing. Not being able to see your competitors might rattle some teams at the beginning of a race but not our crew; not now.

In our meeting the night before, we talked at length about how we were going to deal with racing from behind off the start. We came to the conclusion that it doesn't matter where the other crews are, we can't control them. The only thing we can control is the speed of our boat. No matter where anyone else is our goal remains the same: get our boat off the line and on to our rhythm as fast as possible.
The starter calls us to attention: we all move to three-quarters slide and lock our blades in the water… legs twitching waiting for him to call GO!

There are few times in a rower's life when she knows, even before getting into the starting gates, that her crew will do something amazing. It's a feeling you get when everything seems to be lining up just right. When things that were once shaky suddenly stabilize, weak points become strengths and you just know in your heart that your crew is ready to face anything that comes at them.

On Saturday, racing the Orange Challenge Cup in Philly, I got this sense in the warm-up — and I think the other women did too! The boat was ticking along with power and the rate was coming effortlessly. All eight were one.

It would be easy for me to say now I knew we would win but honestly, I didn't know if we were going to win. What I knew then was that we were lucky enough to be racing on our Best Day.

…and then we crabbed.

Within the first 10 strokes of the race one of us caught a crab (See definition below!). For what felt like 10 minutes, but was likely only a few seconds, we had an oar dangling parallel to the boat. We had an amazing warm-up, were all fired up and right away we make a boat-stopping mistake. Sounds like a nightmare, right?

Well, it didn't phase us. All eight women reacted as if this error had been a part of our race plan. In the next 10 strokes, with a calm fury, we made up the lost boat speed and resumed the execution of our race plan to it's fullest potential.

So I was wrong! We weren't racing on our Best Day. In fact, it might be safe to say we had a few odds against us on Saturday. But the way our crew handled our Bad Day fills me (and I'm sure the rest our boat agrees) with the confidence that we can count on each other…

Syracuse will not back down.

Wikipedia is the best…
Catching a Crab
"A rowing error where the rower is unable to timely remove or release the oar blade from the water and the oar blade acts as a brake on the boat until it is removed from the water. This results in slowing the boat down. A severe crab can even eject a rower out of the shell or make the boat capsize (unlikely except in small boats). Occasionally, in a severe crab, the oar handle will knock the rower flat and end up behind him/her, in which case it is referred to as an 'over-the-head crab.'"

ENTRY 7 - Sunday morning in Syracuse after the opening week of a new semester
Jan. 21, 2012

Out my window, a deserted South Campus looks neatly still after an active night. At the same time, violent winds pound against my apartment. Though all appears calm, there is an invisible force rallying—threatening something.

Our team, like the wind, in this phase of winter training will invisibly grind out our volume away from Onondaga Lake. Around us, other teams do the same. All will appear calm for the next eight weeks while our furious efforts are contained indoors… we will be the only ones able to see the Orange maelstrom brewing in Archbold and Flannigan.

This week, our first week of training in Syracuse this semester, had reduced training hours because of NCAA something something—doesn't matter. Our team organizes their time to be able to fill the seats on the erg, the bike and in the tank of the crew room regardless of what Justin, Alicea and Andrea are allowed to mandate.

Sports engender numerous intangible qualities in their participants; determination, confidence and teamwork being only a few examples. I believe self-directed excellence to be one of the more crucial athletic qualities for a team to be successful. You have to be able to train on your own just as hard as when you're with your team. Coach Moore agrees. He emphasizes that the elite woman is not led by another—whether it's coach, professor or parent—but by herself. Our races won't be fought by anyone else but Us. Justin, Alicea and Andrea can want to go to NCAAs all they like! They can write an amazing training program, they can provide their keen technical eyes and depth of knowledge… pour their heart and soul into their jobs. If we don't take advantage of their skill, if each team member doesn't choose to put in the time, we cannot expect cross the finish-line first. In rowing, the dedication a team has to their Winter Training season directly corresponds to their racing success in the spring. Being a student-athlete, however, restricts the amount of time we are able to spend working toward our goals together. Therefore it is crucial that our team bank strokes individually as well. Though we may be on our own or in small groups, there is a heavy feeling of collective consciousness in the crew room.

Like a locomotive, each wheel must individually turn for the whole to push forward. Although speed builds slowly at first, one wheel at a time, inevitably with all wheels turning and synchronized as one, the train becomes unstoppable.

ENTRY 6 - Florida Training Trip
Jan. 9, 2013

In the Orlando airport waiting for our bags.
I look around at the groggy faces of my teammates. Tired from the various journeys that bring us together again in Florida we wipe away the jetlag to hug and excitedly talk about our time apart. Everyone's had a good break and though they don't look like it now—especially the few who've travelled from Australia and New Zealand—they're rested and ready to put some serious strokes in the bank.

Coach Moore steps on to the bus.
If you know him—or anyone on the Rowing team—you'll know that he's not a man of few words. The speeches that he gives to fire us up before practice could stand alone as novels. It is true what they say, a picture is worth a thousand words and in this moment, Coach doesn't need to say a thing. Clothes pressed and tucked with his orange and blue striped tie laying proudly over his chest, he embodies the new era of Syracuse Women's Rowing.

That night.
Giggles resound throughout the hotel as roommates settle in to their rooms and chatter about what's to come. Restless legs wanting to push and arms itching to pull make sleeping difficult. But we must get rest because soon it will be morning, camp will start, and together the team will bear their teeth.

ENTRY 5 - Some Different Voices
Nov. 5, 2012

Hello Orange Oars—Let's play a game! There's a secret word hidden in this blog… first one to read the whole thing, find the word and email me with it wins a prize!!

Now down to business…
All leaders are the loudest right?—LIES! So let's make sure you hear the voices of two leaders on our team. Usually these ladies like to let their work speak for itself but I asked Emily Moomey and Carmen Failla to break out their dictionaries and share their experiences at Head of the Charles and the Princeton Chase with you.
I'm not making this stuff up people… they feel it to! We're doing it… each day depositing more strokes in the bank until we're ready to make our withdrawal at Big East.

From Moomey's Mouth:

To those of you that don't know me, my name is Moomey – well technically it is Emily, but the only person who calls me that is my mother (and occasionally Alicea). In fact I am fairly confident that most of the team doesn't even know my first name, but I've been told Moomey is significantly cooler so I accepted the change a long time ago. Anyway, this marks my senior year at Syracuse and my fourth year as a rower (I walked on to the team as a freshman and haven't looked back since).

Two weekends ago our team competed in the Head of the Charles Regatta for the first time in the four years that I have been here. Justin only entered one four into the race, but that did not stop the rest of us from shipping up to Boston (Dropkick Murphys anyone) to scream at our fellow teammates from the top of Weeks Bridge. Thirteen of us left Syracuse after Saturday morning practice and drove 5 hours until we hit my hometown of Mansfield, MA. Shout out to my parents and Kristin Hanifin's parents for letting all of us crash at our houses for two nights.

Even though we went to support our teammates that were racing, it turned into a mini vacation for the rest of us. We were able to enjoy hanging out with each other outside of practice, outside of seat racing, outside of the forces that can sometimes turn us against one another. Plus, we were able to buy a lot of cool shirts and eat some really good food, which will make any rower happy. We even got to see some Syracuse rowing alumni like Tiffany Macon, Sydney Axson, Allison Todd, and Mike Gennaro along the banks of the Charles. Our boat placed 6^th at the regatta right behind some big names like Brown and Yale in a time of 19.23.4. The weekend gave us a first glimpse at what the competition has to offer, but I think it also revealed how dedicated and supportive we are as a collective unit.

Now, even with the Charles being a major first for the team, as a senior I have inevitably started to notice many lasts. For instance, since racing has started this fall I have competed in my last Head of the Genesee and most recently my last Princeton Chase. However, these are some of the best lasts that anyone could want.

Let me explain.

Coach Moore came to Syracuse at the beginning of my sophomore year and threw a huge bucket of water on all of our faces. He wasn't afraid to tell us that we sucked. And some people couldn't handle that, but it was the truth. He cut people from the roster and changed everything that we had known, but ever since the team has been on a steady incline.

In true Justin form he lovingly pointed out before the Chase this year that Mike Gennaro's pair beat our second 8 his first year at Syracuse (he likes to remind us of our roots). Somehow I have managed to make the second varsity boat for the Princeton Chase the past three years and I can tell you from first hand experience that our 15^th place finish this year at the Chase was not luck, we earned that. Our 4^th place finish in the first varsity was not luck – we earned that. We beat our times from that first year with Justin by 2 minutes this year.

It is easy to say we have improved so much because we started in such a poor place, and Justin definitely reminds us of that as well, but we have to celebrate a little bit. During our race on Sunday the 2V watched Brown's B boat battle very hard to catch our stern, and we never let them touch us. They would walk a few inches and we would push back a couple more. I can tell you that two years ago Brown would have walked through us by the 2,000-meter mark. My last Princeton Chase was inspiring. It was the best last anyone could want.

Recently CEO of DreamWorks Animation Jeffrey Katzenberg came to speak at school about his accomplishments in the entertainment industry. Being the major animation/Disney freak that I am I made sure I was front and center for that discussion. Near the end of the talk students started asking for career advice and Katzenberg had a simple answer for each person. "You actually have to believe in yourself. Whatever it is that you are doing, whatever it is that your devoting your efforts and your time to, if you don't believe that you are good or going to succeed at what you are doing, well, why do you think anybody else will?" he said. Our team is continuing to work very hard and for the first time it feels like we all believe in what we can accomplish this year – and that is a seat next to the best teams in the country at the NCAAs.

Carmen's Thoughts:

I was lucky enough to be sitting in the V8+ when we
finally cracked, not only the top 10 but the top 5 in the open women's 8+'s category at the Princeton Chase. Through the three years of Justin being head coach we have made step after step (being top 30, top 20 and now top 5). I am proud to still be a member of this team, in my 5th year, that has completely committed to making the change and are determined to get faster every single day!

After only 6 of us racing at the Head of the Charles (a 4+ representing Syracuse) the Princeton Chase was going to be a pivotal race to see where we stack up against everyone in the 8+'s. The results can also be compared to years previous to see where we started and where we have come. There was definitely pressure to perform but everyone turned the pressure into drive and excitement- we knew it was our time to make an impact.

Most of the time things feel so much easier when you are doing well/ are at the top. Its hard to put into words how much you appreciate being in the top section after starting basically bottom. There is still much work to be done but I have no doubt that this will be a statement making year for the Syracuse Women's Rowing team and I am so thankful that I can be a part of it!

After thoughts:
I lied. There was no word. But you still won a prize!—The self-satisfaction of finishing what you started. You're welcome.

ENTRY 4 - Putting Feet to Philosophy
Oct. 15, 2012

...It's the final 500m of our last race of the day and my teammates and I in the 8+ are holding off Cornell. They try to move back on us but we've worked too hard to let them come back now. You feel every oar lift the boat as Marta calls our sprint to the line. As we pass under the final bridge we hear a voice. Justin? It shouts something about 20 strokes left. Then we hear the chanting—It's our team. Our legs are screaming but their voices melt the pain. We remember Tuesday's on the buoy line and think of our marathon Saturday practices—we've endured worse than this together. Already positioned ahead we find that extra push, for all those cheering, and open the margin between our boat and Cornell. Louder and louder they yell as we drive the boat further and further away from our competition. More water… we want more open water between us. Eight pairs of legs move as one when Marta calls our final push and with the strength of the whole team carrying us to the line—the horn sounds—we've won.

Huddled together by our trailer after we've finished de-rigging our boats, Justin wants to say a few words. He asks that all the women who were with him from the first year he came to Syracuse to come forward. It takes no time for the rest of us put our arms around each other and form a circle around them. A sentimental Coach Moore thanks the women in the middle for not accepting the poor result two years ago at this very regatta and nobly putting in the work to get the team to where it is today. "You have had to exude poise in defeat, and now you have the luxury of experiencing poise in victory," he declares, "Today is your day."

So… the first regatta went well. It's always nice to win, but it's especially nice to win after your team has gone outside their comfort zone in training. With a few races under our belt and all the early-season jitters knocked out we'll resume training this week with a more confident head that our practices are indeed pointing us in the right direction. We still have a lot of work to do and now that we've experienced a bit of the dividends of our inner-squad competition I expect the level of ferocity in practice to rise again—and I can't wait! We proved that we can race with heart this weekend but it's going to take more than that to become Big East Champions. As a Syracuse announcer once said at one of our football games: "You can't win'em all if you don't win the first one." Well… so far so good. Let's see where we take it from here.

…We're on the bus now and it's quiet. The tidal burst of emotion has subsided as the fatigue of the day begins to weigh on the team. Travelling back to Syracuse, the air is light and the atmosphere is crisp with wordless excitement. Brewing in the heart of this bus is momentum.

There's a moment when Carmen Failla turns back in her chair and we lock eyes. We both smile with the knowledge of what's happening around us and I think to myself—I am so grateful I get to be a part of this team.

ENTRY 3 - Do Your Best and Do It Now
Oct. 8, 2012

Disclaimer: This week's blog will examine the boat-selection process and has the potential to become suuuper cereal—I mean serious. I'm about to introduce you to the, let's say… less photogenic and socially stagnating cousin of Daily Training called Seat-Racing. He's that cousin you let crash on your couch for a few weeks a year because you feel a moral obligation to see that he's taken care of. You know he's got good intentions, yet you just can't help but resent his presence and feel sorry for yourself when he shows up. My hope is by the end of this entry you will feel anxious, uncomfortable, and vastly uncertain about what is being explained to you—Just like real seat-racing! BUT, also like real seat racing, we're all going to smile through it because we know it's making the boat faster, right? Sure.

In rowing, unlike ball and stick sports, you can only be certain you're on the team a few days out of the year. A rower hasn't truly made the team until the day of the race when the chosen eight women are sitting in the boat at the starting gates—the coach can't replace you in the middle of a race.

It is true that an athlete could spend all year training alongside their teammates and never sit in the racing boat. They put in the same workload and receive none of the tangible benefit. That's the cruel reality of rowing… there are only a certain number of seats to be filled. Today's blog will address the uncertainty rowers live with because it's been my experience that this is very hard to understand for some people outside the sport (in particular: parents… especially after their child has dropped out of school). What I've found best communicates the motivation behind this concept is classic rowing rhetoric: Does it make the boat go faster?

A good deal of a rower's life is dedicated to the servitude of The Boat. We aim to perfect our technique so the boat will feel comfortable in the water. We wash, wipe down and care for the boats, sometimes more often than our own bodies. Indeed a rower is even taught to dive under a falling boat because it is ultimately worth more to the team than that rowers life—okay, this might be a mild exaggeration. No coach actually tells you to jump under boats… although, I've witnessed almost every rower I know, at some point, risk their well-being to prevent boat damage… just sayin' is all. There could be any number of rowers on a team—you will always be able to find another rower—but there is only one boat. Our ideology tells us that the individuals inside the boat are interchangeable, exchangeable and, ultimately, expendable. Therefore, in order to make yourself irreplaceable, you must learn how to make the boat go faster.

Selection—or seat-racing, as we call it—started last week for our team. I will now attempt the impossible and explain the selection process in a way that isn't confusing. Two boats race a set distance and the amount of time it takes for each boat to complete the race is recorded. Then one individual is taken from each boat and switched into the other. The boats race the same distance again with their new combination of people and their times are recorded. The difference in time between the boats from the two races determines the speed of the individuals that were swapped. For example: Let's say, Boat1 beats Boat2 by 2 seconds in the first race and then after the rowers trade seats Boat2 beats Boat1 by 2 seconds. The girl in the winning boat in both races just proved that she makes the boat go faster by a total of 4 seconds over the rower she was switched with—congratulations to her!

However, a problem remains for the coach: if one rower is faster than the other on this one day of seat-racing, does it mean she will automatically be faster than her every day and by the same margin? No! Of course not! If it did then selecting a boat would be easy, no coach would ever feel that he or she was making the wrong decision and we would all eat ice cream rainbows and have puppy unicorns. This is why most coaches will argue—and I agree— that "every day is a seat race"; if you truly are faster then you should have no problem bringing your speed to practice every day.

Like I said before, seat-racing causes a lot of anxiety for rowers because of the fact that it is just one day's performance. There is a ton of pressure to sum up your entire worth into just a few minutes of racing. All the work you did over the summer and the training you've put into this year needs to show up on one glorious day. Now you may be thinking: "these rowers are brutal! Why should you be expected to perform to your potential at a moment's notice?" Well, there is one very good reason. In the starting gates of a race there are no do-overs, or sorrys, or I'm-not-ready-yets. Once the starter has aligned the boats to attention and called them to attention, there is only GO.

I remember thinking the night before the Olympic Final how prepared our boat was and how ready we were to give our everything for six minutes. Because we embraced the opportunity before the final to prove to each other that we knew how to race in practice, when the time came to perform, we all felt a sense of calm and confidence in our abilities—and don't forget excitement! Finally able to show the world what we had seen in training all year!

Coach Moore believes in the same approach to training. He stresses that we always need to row with our race mentality switched on. If we can show each other day after day that we can put forth our best efforts then we will gain confidence in our teams ability to perform at any time. His line goes something like, "the harder practice is, the easier racing feels." He means: the more enthusiasm each individual brings to practice… the more inner-squad competition we create… the more we can push each other and force one another to bring up the level of the team… the less surprised we'll be on race day and the better we'll be able to perform against other teams.

Slowly we're learning how to beat on each other on the water and not take it personally. We've started to realize that we owe it to the team as a whole to bring the best parts of ourselves to practice. Participating at 70% doesn't train our bodies to be able to perform at any time.

I'll say it again, I believe the greatest strength this team has is each other. You put yourself out there to be judged when you line up to race. I've seen the women on this team dare to push themselves a little harder in the past few months and it's because they know they have a safety net of people to fall into if they push themselves outside of their current abilities. This is key if we want to become an NCAA-level program: always fearlessly reaching for more.

So I say to my team, as our boats are being decided for the fall racing schedule, that I am committed to making whatever boat I'm in go as fast as I possibly can for all of you. I also promise to race with the same relentless ferocity against our own boats as I would against Cornell and Notre Dame…and I know you will do the same.

Can't wait for tomorrow's practice so we can all grind each other into the ground :)

ENTRY 2 - A look back, and a look ahead
Oct. 1, 2012

Last week I went back to Canada to participate in the Post-Olympic Excellence Series and the Heroes Parade in Toronto. Seeing not only my 8 favourite people but the entire Canadian Olympic team again was thrilling! (I also learned that I unfortunately can't seem to close my mouth when being photographed… am I extremely enthusiastic or do I spy someone holding a sandwich I'd like to eat? It's a toss up really…)

Being with the team again brought back all the memories from the years leading up to the Olympics. Looking back on my experience I remember:

a. Being in pain
b. Being tired
c. Being tired of being in pain
d. LOVING IT.

Now… surely you can understand feeling a, b and c training three times a day… but d? I have a hard time myself, understanding why I feel so positively about having to peel my dead-tired body out of a boat every day for two years. What made it so enjoyable? Why did I have a smile on my face when I was tearing myself apart in the weight room or racing for my life day after day? This week I've come to a reason:

Because I was doing it with my team.

I'm not sure if you're aware of the incredible women who've graced the LTC over the past quadrennial, but their attitudes, work ethic and most importantly trust and pride in their teammates were paramount in our silver accomplishment. The nine of us who were fortunate enough to race in the Olympics know that it took more than nine of us to confidently cross the line just behind the Americans. The positivity that was fostered around inner-squad competition created an atmosphere of excellence that every woman labored to uphold.

…and now I'm back at Syracuse, where I got my start in rowing; not knowing what to expect after being on a team with such purposeful training and high goals. What I've found—and am thrilled to be a part of—is a similar spirit! What we have here at SU is an excited bunch of women with an incredible sense of team spirit and an endless amount of energy to put toward our goals. Several months away from our competitive spring season you can feel a tangible hunger when we line up against each other on the water. But once we're back on land there's an understanding that no matter who is in what boat, either in front or behind, our family stands stronger united. Words like "supported" and "family" come out of the mouths of my fellow teammates when I ask them why they stay on the team. It's not the awesome training facilities or the equipment or the gear, it's the people they get to work with everyday that make every day worth working for.

Wouldn't you like to meet some of these people?

This is why I feel so confidently about our team's chances in the spring. I know we're not the tallest, the most naturally-gifted and we don't have the long history of success to fall back on… but we have each other(and that definitely includes Coaches Moore, Kochis and Buch!). It's scary to try to go somewhere you've never been (like, let's say… NCAAs) but when you feel supported, it's not as frightening to push those extra watts, to lift those extra pounds, to make yourself hurt more than you ever have before because you know your team is doing it with you.
I know we can go anywhere as long as we go together.

Nature appreciation time…
There was a lull in conversation during our Saturday post-practice run and my fellow Canadian, Georgia Hamilton, broke the silence with: "Guys, can you just take a second to look at these trees!" (I can't remember if this is exactly what she said—sorry to misquote you, Hams—but if not this then it was something equally as granola). When the six of us looked around we saw an absolutely bright and clear fall day—leaves turning, birds chirping, sun shining—you remember what Saturday was like! The kind of day where you just can't bear to be inside. Lucky for us, being outside all Saturday morning was mandatory.
SU rowers live outside in the autumn. Maybe it's that we can feel that winter chill in the air and know we have precious time left on the water or maybe for some it's the excitement of coming back to collegiate sport after a summer away. Whatever the reason, it seems like our team just can't get enough. The women leap at a chance to do an extra workout on the water before we're confined to the ergs.

Here, in the CNY/Finger Lakes region, it would be easy to become jaded by its ubiquitous natural beauty. But thankfully, our team has Georgia, to make us take time to appreciate the environment we get to work in every day.
Obviously on our run no one had a camera but my Sunshine correspondent: Laura Adams, has been snapping away from the Coach's launch since we got back on the water. The girl has an excellent eye for photography, take a look!

To catch more of Laura's Sunshine follow her on twitter @laura_darinka

After Thoughts…
My Titans—you know who you are. I feel like I've thanked you so many times, but just once more… for shoveling snow, bearing with some dense bread (and so much more), saying you liked my pasta best, teaching me how to bow the right way, watching a terribly hilarious teen movie series, showing me the wonders of argon oil and how to save my skin from the sun, agreeing that Don Draper is dreamy, walking me through Lucerne(even though we shouldn't have) and for all my chats with you along the way, especially at midnight in Corgeno—Thanks.

In our short two years together you've each taught me something that's changed who I am and who I want to be.

ENTRY 1 - Back on Campus
Sept. 24, 2012

For the past few weeks I feel as if I've been walking around in a giddy haze. It is unreal to be back at Syracuse, once again competing for the Orange! It's been two whole years since my sweat poured into Onondaga Lake, but once I get into our boats it feels like yesterday.

For those of you who don't know me, I'm the crazy Canuck who had the brilliant idea to try to make the Olympic team after rowing for three years. Fortunately, two more years, a bunch of hard work and three rib fractures later, I can proudly say to you I raced the Olympic final of the Women's 8+ to gain a silver medal for Canada. It only took everything I had to give… but more on that later.

Upon returning home from the Olympics I had 10 days to complete all the paperwork, move out of my house at the London Training Centre, reorganize and pare down my wardrobe to be able to fit into my new little Syracuse apartment (a bigger undertaking than you might think; special thanks to Momma and Poppa Strach) and finally move back to Syracuse to try to remember how to be a student again finishing the last year of my B.A. in English Literature. (Without fail, every time I tell someone I'm an English major I can feel them looking for an opportunity to correct my grammar. Let's not play this game and keep in mind that this is the internet…)

The one thing making this transition back to school easier is the rowing team. The Syracuse women's rowing team was on fire last year! I was able to follow the team's highs and lows through the social media magic of Twitter and Facebook from our National Training Centre in London, Ontario (from now on referred to as the LTC). It was thrilling to see the fire the women here have been kindling while I was away and it's even more exciting that I get to be a part of the action this year!

So here starts the documentation of what will be — I'm going to claim it now — the most dynamic year in SU Women's Rowing since our top 6 finish at NCAAs in 2001. Don't worry, I'll hold your hand as we go through this journey together, and give you the full story behind the highlights on your App. I can't promise I won't start rambling about Canada and the Olympics now and then but hopefully my stories will help you learn a bit about rowing (and maybe even hockey) and provide a different (hopefully hilarious) point of view. Regardless, week by week, you will hear the tale of a team standing together to face the ominous task of qualifying SU for the NCAAs.

Fasten your seat belts, hold on to your hats, slide that bottom forward to the edge of your seat and think of a few more cliché's while you're at it because the SU women rowers are about to put on a show and this is your front row seat.

After thoughts…
I'd like to take this opportunity to send a special message to Mr. Michael Phelps—I know you really wanted to meet me while we were in London this summer and I'm so sorry it just didn't fit into my schedule. Any time you're in the Syracuse area feel free to drop by, I'd be happy to sign a poster for you…

-Natalie

Syracuse University Athletics

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